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Topic: White Whole Wheat (Read 14916 times)

King Arthur Flour calls it hard White Whole Wheat. Tom Lehmann calls it Whole White Wheat. It's an increasingly available, milder-tasting alternative to traditional red whole wheat. While I like the red whole wheat for pancakes and muffins, I think the white whole wheat is better for other breads, especially pizza.

This is a recipe I've been developing; it supersedes an earlier posting. It is specific to KA's WWW, because other brands can and do have other protein and grind levels. Compared to pizza made with refined flour, whole wheat will require more water, absorption time, and vital wheat gluten. I'm still working on optimum kneading. (If hand kneading, at least one writer says whole wheat bread needs at least 30 minutes. I haven't gone there.)

Hydrate yeast. Mix with other ingredients, except oil and kneading flour. Let rest for 30 minutes, then mix in the oil. Hand knead for 10 minutes. I refigerate about 30 hours. I form the dough in a NY style, though I bake in a 16" perforated pan. The pie cooks in 10 minutes at 450 degrees.

The crumb is relatively fine, but the crust is not heavy. A slice droops a little and is foldable. The crust is slightly crisp on the exterior and is moderately chewable overall.

I've noticed on KA's baking forum that some people that use WWW in a poolish type starter for baking bread report an "off" flavor.

You give your dough a nice long rise. Have you noticed any thing like that in a plain baked dough? I've always just used a small portion of regular WW along with KA Bread Flour, also retard the dough. People seem to like the color and flavor.

I made this pizza crust tonight. I used IDY and refigerated 24 hours. I took it out 2 hours before spreading and it was great. Spread well, browned up nicely, tasted great. Charbo did a nice job with this crust!!!

I have set forth below a dough formulation that I think should come pretty close to the original dough recipe. To do the conversion, I weighed the 10 fluid ounces of water on my regular scale and I weighed the rounded 1/2 teaspoon of salt on a special scale that I use for such purposes. I also used charbo's weight for the 3 cups of KAWWW flour to get the weight of the 3/8 cup of that flour used for kneading purposes. I combined both parts of the KAWWW flour on the assumption that all of the kneading flour will eventually end up in the dough. That may not always be the case, so you should exercise your best judgment as to how much of the kneading flour to use. As noted in the dough formulation below, which I prepared using the expanded dough calculating tool at http://www.pizzamaking.com/expanded_calculator.html, the main part of the KAWWW flour (3 cups by volume) represents 89% of the total weight of KAWWW flour and the kneading KAWWW flour (3/8 cup) represents 11% of the total. I mention these percents since they are the ones one would use to do the proper apportioning if the dough formulation is modified for more than one dough ball and/or for different pizza sizes.

Based on a total dough ball weight of 25.58 ounces and the 16" pizza size that is made from that dough ball, I calculated a thickness factor of 0.127214. I did not use a bowl residue compensation, but you are free to use one if you would like. Finally, because the Bob's Red Mill brand of vital wheat gluten seems to be the most common brand used by our members, I used that brand for purposes of coming up with the dough formulation presented below. I can adjust the dough formulation for you if you end up with a different brand. The only brand I have been able to find in the supermarkets near me is the Hodgson Mill brand.

Note: For a single 16" pizza; calculated thickness factor = 0.127214; no bowl residue compensation*The main part of the KAWWW flour represents 89% of the total flour weight and the kneading KAWWW flour represents 11% of the total flour weight.**The stated values are equivalent to a rounded 1/2-teaspoon of salt***Bob's Red Mill brand

The actual hydration will be somewhat lower than indicated in the above dough formulation because the VWG is treated separately. If the VWG is combined with the KAWWW flour, the "effective" hydration is 64.91%.

thanks, that is what i was referring to but now i have another question. if they are "general" have you found them to work well with the NY style? i ask because one aspect of NY style pizza that i've noticed is that there seems to be less sauce than american style. you never get a mouthful of sauce when you eat NY style pizza, the cheese and sauce seem to merge together as one almost.

I haven't tried enough NY style pizzas in pizzerias to be able to properly answer your question. However, I would think that if you are trying to make a whole wheat version of a NY style pizza, like the version of the dough recipe you used from this thread, you might want to use more sauce to counteract the flavors due to the flour itself. This may be less true for the white whole wheat flour than the regular whole wheat flour. For cheese, I usually use around 7-8 ounces of mozzarella cheese for a 14" pizza.

you're absolutely right, i made a pizza tonight and even though i used the same amount of sauce i'd been using with the white crusts, it was not enough for the whole wheat crust, even the white whole wheat. by the way, do you think it is a good idea to apply olive oil to the crust before topping it?

i also tried a new cheese, whole foods whole milk mozzarella. it was an improvement over GFS, but still did not taste anything like the cheese/sauce cheese combo found on new york pizza.

i find it a bit funny how on my first attempt ever, i made a crust that tasted very reminiscent of NY style crust (with no stone or high gluten flour) and yet i have been totally unable to produce anything that reminds me of NY style when it comes to the sauce and cheese. it seems like the crust is actually the easiest part.

I personally don't oil the skin of any pizza before dressing and baking the pizza, and it is not something that pizza operators who specialize in the NY style do. For them, it would be an extra, time-consuming step. However, if using a whole wheat flour to make the crust leads to a gum line, then I might consider oiling the skin in that case. Our members who make whole wheat crusts might be able to tell you better than I if oiling the skin is a good idea or not.

As for the sauce and cheese part of the NY style, you might want to read posts in the NY style board and the sauce and cheese child boards since those topics have been covered extensively there.

I personally don't oil the skin of any pizza before dressing and baking the pizza, and it is not something that pizza operators who specialize in the NY style do. For them, it would be an extra, time-consuming step. However, if using a whole wheat flour to make the crust leads to a gum line, then I might consider oiling the skin in that case. Our members who make whole wheat crusts might be able to tell you better than I if oiling the skin is a good idea or not.

As for the sauce and cheese part of the NY style, you might want to read posts in the NY style board and the sauce and cheese child boards since those topics have been covered extensively there.

Peter

oh yeah, so do NY pizzerias put oil in the sauce then or is the grease only from the cheese? what is a gum line?